Various systems and interfaces have been created for accessing and navigating content on the internet. For instance, when a user enters search terms into a browser interface, that browser will generate a search request that is sent to one or more search engines to identify indexed content corresponding with the search terms. When the browser receives search results back from the search engine(s), the browser will display the search results with controls for accessing and navigating through the search results.
Many browsers are distributed applications with interfaces that are configured to run on client machines and/or as services provided by remote hosts. Some browsers are also integrated into and hosted by the search engines. While other browsers are hosted by completely different domains than those that are hosting the search engines. Google, Bing and Yahoo are some non-limiting examples of search engines.
It is typical for search engines to utilize indexes that identify correlations between various search terms and the content that is available on different webpages. The indexes are formulated and updated in response to data obtained by web crawlers that identify and examine webpages. Each of the search engines utilize complex algorithms to weight the relevance between the search terms and the content identified in their indexes. Most search engines compile their search results into an ordered list, comprising a SERP (Search Engine Results Page). The SERP references different webpages containing content associated with the search terms. The browser presents the SERP, as a webpage to the user, with selectable links for each of the listed search result items. When a link is selected, the browser is redirected from the search engine domain to a different domain that is hosting the content corresponding to the selected link.
In some instances, the listing of content links identified in the SERP are sequenced in an order that is based on relevance, such as, for example, based on contextual correlations to the search terms provided by the browser and/or based on how recently the content was indexed and/or updated by the search engine web crawlers. The indexes for each search engine are formulated and updated in different ways. For instance, different search engines use different web crawlers at different times and they also use different algorithms for determining the significance or relevance between different terms. Accordingly, the results (e.g., SERP) returned by each of the different search engines will almost always be different. For instance, the SERP provided by one search engine might include references in a different order than the SERP provided by another search engine. Likewise, references in one SERP might be excluded from another SERP.
Some users are aware of the foregoing discrepancies and will sometimes go through the laborious process of interfacing with a plurality of different search engines to ensure that they are receiving the most appropriate content being searched for. This process, of interfacing with different search engines, however, is very time consuming and requires the user to navigate to the different domains of each search engine and to explicitly enter new user input for submitting separate requests to each of the search engines from those different webpages/domains.
Most browsers and search engines are configured to filter for and to distinguish between different types of content, such as image content, video content, shopping content, news content, general web content, etc. Accordingly, a user can select a particular content type filter on the browser interface to limit their search results to only the desired type(s) of content. However, the additional steps required for a user to filter their search to only a particular type of content, when comparing results from multiple search engines, can exacerbate the problems addressed above. In particular, the user will now need to perform the additional steps for navigating to and through the different filter menus/controls for each of the different search engines. This can be particularly problematic when the different search engines and browsers present their filter options differently, making it more difficult to navigate the content in a desired and consistent way. Each additional process and step required to perform this type of navigation will also incur additional computational expense and represents some of the technical difficulties associated with accessing content on the Internet.
In some instances, a user can navigate to a particular website by entering the URL of the website into the browser. Once the browser navigates to the domain of that website, it will present content published by the host website, as well as links to secondary content published by the host website and/or secondary websites hosted by different domains. For instance, a host website might include links associated with a plurality of different articles published by the host. In these instances, when a user clicks on a link, the browser will access the corresponding content, which is often provided from the same host domain. In other instances, the link may redirect the browser to another domain that contains the webpage for the linked content. If a user wants to read/access all of the different linked content (particularly when it is hosted by different domains), they will be required to iteratively navigate back to the host domain website before they can access the different links to the different websites hosted by different domains. Even when the websites are all hosted by the same domain host, the back and forth navigation to the primary webpage represents wasted time and computational processing.
In some instances, a webpage may be configured to wrap the secondary linked content hosted by the secondary domain(s) into the webpage frame of a first domain, without requiring a user to navigate to the secondary domain(s). This can be accomplished, for example, by having the webpage of the first domain query for the content of the secondary domain(s) so that it is surfaced by the first domain within the frame of the first domain. However, such processing may result in undesired filtering of content and services provided by the second domain. This can also prevent the user's profile from being accurately updated to reflect navigation to the secondary domain(s) and/or while providing unnecessary attribution to the first domain.
Problems associated with navigating content on the internet can be even more pronounced on mobile devices because some of the browser navigation controls are restricted, including the presentation of links to secondary content, adding to the difficulty for making the back and forth navigation between the primary webpage or SERP and the different linked sources. This is particularly true when the secondary links redirect the browser to different domains.